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History 104A, September 28: Girlie-Men Conquer the World!

We're in Iraq information Mesopotamia, but we are now going into

Greece. Well, I'm not going into Greece. We're finishing up Greece.

Last time went through a couple of things, at the basic fall of

Athens, if you want to call it that, with the Spartan's puppet

government, conservative government that took over. And the execution

or Socrates who I identified, despite the history books, did not

believe in democracy, was not a free thinker. And we moved on to

dealing with some of the other philosophers, but the main emphasis

would be Plato who, in a sense, was the spokesperson for Socrates.

And I said that today we would enter into some information about

Aristotle and then move onto the true story of Alexander, not the bad

movie. Did I ask how many people saw the movie on Alexander?

Q Are you mad because they depicted him as gay?

THE PROFESSOR: No. I'm mad because they didn't do it the way

those movies are supposed to be done where they got Steve Reeves. You

don't know who Steve Reeves was. He was the first Arnold

Schwarzenegger. All of those girly men. We're taken all this down.

Now I'm going to get my ass in trouble.

A I didn't tell you to say that.

THE PROFESSOR: Of course you didn't. But you start my sit down

comedy.

Q Don't you think that some of the images of these famous God-like

man figures weren't kind of mystified and idealized to be these big

hunky men like Arnold? They could have been these scrawny dudes, but

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you have where you make a portrait, it comes out to be a little bit

nicer than the actual thing?

THE PROFESSOR: You mean like Jessie Ventura using a body double

when he ran for governor? I think those girly men are trying to shut

you up or the real men. Is that your phone?

Obviously, historically, propaganda was used. We're not talking

about reality. Hollywood is not reality. And when you watch movies

or cartoon movies like Pocahontas, you begin to realize the

distortion. Alexander's mother was a snake dancer. And snake dancers

tend today sleep with the snake or have sex with the snakes.

A I don't know how that would work.

A I don't get it.

THE PROFESSOR: I'm not going to describe that. I'm sorry.

There's a certain point with the reporter here that I'm not going

into. Zeus came down in the form of a snake. And I guess based on

mythology, he impregnated Alexander's mother and out of that union

came the semi God, Demi God, Alexander. They didn't do that in the

movie? The mother goddesses of Crete were also snake dancers.

However, if you do need the find out how it works, many years ago

there was a pornographic movie that made the headlines, besides Deep

Throat which was one that some of you heard of called The Devil and

Miss Jones. Talk about bad films. You guys hear about The Devil and

Miss Jones?

THE INTERPRETER: Yeah.

THE PROFESSOR: Just checking. They're ancient too, not as

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ancient as I am. They would know those things. In any case, even in

modern pornography, it's projected.

So we're dealing with mythology, obviously. We're dealing with

stories, but I like that. I like those things to escape. I like bad

movies that let me escape, but not when they're so bad and they

distort history like Excalibur or whatever it is, putting on Arnold

Schwarzenegger, putting on the barbarian. How did we get off of that?

You got upset with my being a wise ass. You didn't really.

Aristotle's philosophy, although the student of Socrates,

Aristotle was hired by Alexander to be his tutor. Alexander was well

educated with Aristotle being his tutor. But like many bigger than

life heroes, mythological heroes, although he did exist, the ego is so

strong that they ignore any advice, especially when they are

charismatic like Alexander comes down in history. They don't take

advice. They do what they believe is right.

In any case, I showed you the pure form and the universals.

Aristotle's philosophy could be seen as a pyramid. To Aristotle which

was reality and this was where we created universals. In reality,

there was not universals that existed out of the particulars. In

simple terms, I pointed out yesterday that, to Plato, you knew the

table because you had a sense of the universal, that all people

understood wisdom, beauty, and justice, but the philosopher kings and

queens understood it to the higher level. Based on that, to Plato,

women were equal to men -- God forbid in Greece. That was just a

basic heresy. On one level, they were different. And that was

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physical strength; but mentally, women could be and Plato saw them as

equal, despite that British IQ test that we talked about earlier.

That certainly was in contrast. So therefore, we could have

philosopher queens as well.

The difference being that Plato -- I'm sorry, Aristotle believed

that we understood what a table was by studying tables. In a sense,

the beginning of science. We looked at the particulars, the

individual tables, to come up with a concept rather than having the

concept -- my favorite word for today -- embedded in us. And that way

by studying things, we could learn about reality.

Now, as I say, it is the beginning of science, if you will.

However, he came to certain conclusions by his studies which show the

fault in the study. They were -- today our studies indicate, our

examinations indicate the fallacies of those some of those things and

I'll talk about that. As far as government is concerned, Plato

believed that basically we had three forms of government that were

ideal because they did exist. And those governments would be

democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. As far as women, they were

inferior. Why? Because when we studied the Greek societies, all

women were in an inferior position; whereas in the various

governments, there were three standard governments basically.

Aristotle was a prolific writer. We have literally 162 books of his

that have survived. Now, that's what survived. That's the amazing

let of it. As you know, some of this material got lost during the

quote/unquote dark ages which are certainly a negative term and one

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that we don't use anymore as historians. Much of it was preserved by

the Muslims in the libraries of places like Damascus and Tehran in

Persia, Iran, in Baghdad, in Iraq, and of course in Syria.

He opened up a school in Athens for his students as well, so that

we could spread this on. And in a sense he opened the door to a study

of a lot of things, classified species, if you will, studied various

animals and fossils as best they had the knowledge of. He believed

that there was only one God basically, not the multi Gods of the

Greeks and of course later the Romans. He didn't believe knowledge

itself was virtue. He believed that virtue came in self-control. And

he believed though that learning inspired happiness. And therefore,

if you contemplated and you studied, you were more happy. His studies

led him to believe that man was a political animal. He believed,

based on what he saw and examined, that the freeman should be the

rural over his wife and of course his children and slaves. That

slaves lacked everything and their only usefulness lay in the services

which they rendered to others. He believed, based on his studies

again, that free artisans were inferior to farmers and men of leisure.

We wonder whether Jefferson picked up on some of that later. The

worst of all of any people were bankers. I might note that Aristotle

had a very big influence on the Catholic church, especially in the

medieval period. He said that the well regulated state should not

allow artisans or businessmen to participate in the government. He

said that private property and the monogamous family are necessary to

an efficient social order. It sounds like a supply side economist,

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which is a term or a republican economy. He believed too, he

considered the Greek city take the highest type of government that can

be achieved. And obviously from the word you heard me say, he

believed that the best type was a conservative type. He believed that

Civil War among class, class warfare could be prevented by an

extremely large growth of the middle class. Again, something we

emphasize in democracy a concept that to have a solid democracy you

needed a middle class. Of course he saw that in Athens.

Again, while he looked at astrology and science, not all of them

are examinings. He did hold that the Earth was the center of the

universe not using the Christian sense of heaven above and hell below.

He understood along the classification of many many species and it is

believed that he probably engaged in dissection. Interestingly, he

believed the heart to be the center of intelligence. Today we say,

how could he not know it's the brain? But you know the circulation of

blood was not really quote/unquote discovered until the early 1600s.

People didn't understand that the blood circulated through the body

with a heart as a pump. He believed that the brain regulated the

temperature in the body and it regulated the temperature that the food

that you ate was cooked in for digestion purposes and that digestion

tools in the intestines. That's what his study showed him. And he

also believed for some strange reason that women had fewer teeth than

men. There must have been something in society or he didn't look too

closely at women's teeth. Maybe women lost their teeth earlier. That

one also surprised me. I know that men have one less rib than women

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because Eve came out of the rib of Adam. Never mind. I'm just being

a wise ass again. I'm sorry.

He believed in spontaneous generation, that eels came out of

garbage, if you will. By the way, the spontaneous generation was the

theory of the Egyptians as well. Did I talk about a scar ran? Scarab

is the Egyptian name for the beetle and of course most people think of

the scarab as very much Egyptian, the necklaces the beads, the

symbols. The scarab was believed to come of the of sort of a semi God

who was believed to push the sun across the heavens where Apollo

apparently pulled in in his chariot. Of course the beetles are very

very powerful. They carry things hundreds of times their weight and

they don't take steroids. They saw the scarabs coming out of dung

heaps and therefore they believed that they were spontaneous

generation. What better God to worship than a scarab, something that

comes out of a dung heap. I thought that was an interesting

philosophy anyway.

In any case, air stall's school went on for hundreds of years.

In the 15th century BCE we pointed out that Athens was somewhat under

the control of Sparta as puppet. The city continues, the trade

continues the growth continued the wealth continued, but in the north

the rumblings of a new posterior power, the new empire. The

barbarians although they were Greek under the leadership of Philip of

Macedonia. And like many stories in Greek mythology, although this

may be true, there were those who warned against the danger, tried to

unify the Greek people against the danger of Philip, the most famous

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was a name named Demosthenes who some of you may have heard of he was

the individual who's extremely articulate. His speeches are still

preserved, very well similar perhaps to Abraham Lincoln's

commentaries. Apparently, he was originally a stutterer. And to cure

his stuttering, he practiced speaking and pronouncing with little

pebbles in his mouth. Since he constantly practiced speaking, he

became perhaps one of the best known speakers, historically I guess

we'd say. Wasn't it he as well who was looking for an honest man with

his lantan? Anybody remember that from mythology?

But the Greeks did not take warning and similar to the not

listening to Cassandra years earlier, the Trojans didn't listen to her

be aware the Greeks bearing gifts. In any case, Philip did come down

in the year 353, unify the Greeks for the first time through conquest.

Like many kings historically, the isolation from their children,

perhaps the abuse of their children often led to the love/hate

relationship. And obviously because they had multiple wives or

concubines, there was constantly infighting as to who would become,

whose son would become the emperor, the king, the monarch. And based

on the earlier movie of Alexander with Richard Burton, they definitely

show her, the mother forcing her son on Philip as the king in the long

run playing games palace intrigue which we see continuously with the

Romans with the women and their manipulation of the ruling of the

country and the empire. It goes on later on in Italy with the Medici

family in the medieval family and the Borgias, the power of the women

and of course the famous use of poison to eliminate leaders.

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In any case, Alexander replaces Philip in 332 at the age of 23.

And sets out to conquer the which in a sense he conquers the wealthy

part of the world, the known world. And so out of Macedonia we begin

to see the expansion of Alexander's empire. Crossover, cuts the

Gordian knot and conquers Persia and gets bogged down in India.

During this period, let's call it drugs, probably syphilis or at least

some venereal disease weakens him and he goes a little bonkers

apparently, kills one of his sons, and dies at the age of 33. At the

age of 33 Alexander has conquered the world, at least again the

wealthy world. He did not leave an heir. He does not leave anybody

who can follow him directly. And so that Alexander empire that has

spread Greek culture and mixed it with Oriental culture, which is

basically Hellenistic. Helen is Greek. Hellenistic refers to the

mixing of Greek culture with a Oriental values as well. And

throughout this area Alexander builds new cities dedicated to culture,

knowledge, learning and cities become very important. They become an

important element of life, these new massive cities. And most of them

are named Alexandria. So there are many Alexandrias, but the one we

know best is the one in Egypt where a major library and culture is

kept. The City of Alexandria in Egypt had a population of 2000 or

more. Some of it went under water with the flooding. Many people are

going down there and finding buildings and they think they recently

found some of the pillars from the library of Alexandria.

In any case, with the breakup of the empire of Alexander his

generals are divided. As you can see here I guess this area of the

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eastern area including parts of Persia, although different separation

of his empire, Armenia here, this is under one of the generals

Seleucids. And then another of his generals, Ptolemy. And of course

Ptolemy is name that many brothers take including the brother of

Cleopatra. Cleopatra was I guess we would say the last of the

Ptolemys. And the kingdom of the Acrasicids moving into India. And

then one of the kings moving into Greece, Macedonia, one of the

generals taking over this territory with a certain independence to the

Greeks maintaining a certain unity and Macedonia itself. So we have

then a split empire but with a new basic philosophy, the urbanization

becomes a major sense of the new Hellenistic period -- culture,

knowledge, learning, and if you philosophy. Among those the epicurean

and the stoic. New form of religion, if you will.

Yes, the Greek Gods are still involved but there is a new sense

of the city. And that city introduces from the Indian the stoic

philosophy that you don't search for something. You simply accept and

it will come to you. Out of the Hindu faith, they create the sense of

a lack of desire. And if you go onto a higher level, a higher plane,

although stoicism does not include reincarnation. When you do not

desire something, you simply accept your place in life because in the

next life you are going to be rewarded for it. Stoic is an English

word to refer to somebody who refer to them as simply accepting and

fellow. The one that existed among the upper classes was the

epicurean philosophy. That refers to something who likes to eat good

to do today. The epicurean philosophy -- eat, drink, and be merry,

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and a misinterpretation to the epicurean while we enjoy life and live

life to its fullest, the whole purpose of life was to avoid pain which

is why you didn't take Kirshner's class and take an exam on Friday.

Because if you go through pain, your life is miserable. We ate to a

certain amount. We didn't do what a Romans did and that was eat till

we felt sick and then throw up and eat again. We drank but not to the

extent that we got heavily drunk because that's not very pleasant

either. So some extent the Puritans in our country had that

philosophy. We think of them as not enjoying life. But they felt

that happiness came from not totally the absence but minimal. For

Puritans, you were allowed one smoke of tobacco a day. Anything more

than that could get you sick. You were allowed one drink a day.

Anything more than that could get you sick. You were allowed one

woman a day. Anything more than that would get you sick?

A (Laughing.)

THE PROFESSOR: Again, moderation for the epicureans enjoying the

city. And of course the art became more realistic and more suffering.

They showed people not in the Greek idea, not the phony Hercules which

we've identified, but people began to see seen, although sometimes

with that same exaggerated steroid out body in suffering in pain, in

movement, the Hellenistic art, one of the most famous pieces shows an

old woman looking like an old woman, bent over, going to market.

Well, I've gone as far as I can. We do have a group meeting. If

we will spend the next 20 minutes in that group meeting, the sheets

are up here. Please do head for your groups. If you're not ready,

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you know to write it up.

The exact question is -- compare the Greek concepts of polis,

hubris, and fate with our beliefs today. Compare the Greek concepts

of polis, hubris, and fate with our beliefs today. New chairperson,

please pick up the sheets.

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